It is well known that the cost of tires for a commercial vehicle, or a fleet of commercial vehicles, is often one of the most expensive costs associated with operating the vehicle. Typically, only the cost of fuel exceeds the costs associated with the tires for a commercial vehicle. In light of the high operating costs associated with commercial vehicle tires, there is a lot of interest within the industry, and especially from commercial vehicle owners, to maintain the tires at their optimum condition so they last as long as possible, thereby reducing the overall costs associated with commercial vehicle tires.
In addition, commercial vehicle owners want to keep their vehicles on the road as much as possible with as little down time as possible. Any time the vehicles are not on the road typically means that they are not earning money. While regular maintenance is an important part in ensuring vehicles have a long service life, unplanned maintenance can be extremely disruptive for the vehicle owner in terms of the amount of time and money lost. It is therefore desirable to keep unplanned maintenance, including unplanned tire maintenance, to a minimum.
Furthermore, it is to the advantage of the owner and/or the operator of the vehicle to obtain the lowest cost possible in relation to any required vehicle maintenance. However, obtaining the lowest cost for work can be a very time consuming effort, as it often requires the owner and/or the operator of the vehicle to contact multiple entities, wait for their response, compare the various quotes to one another and then schedule a time for when the maintenance will occur. It would therefore be advantageous to provide the vehicle owner and/or the vehicle operator with a system that will provide them with real-time quotes for maintenance issues so the owner and/or operator can quickly ascertain which one is the best deal in terms of time, money and the quality of work to be performed.